The Gothic Abbey of Northanger is certainly one of the stars of Jane Austin’s novel of that name.
I watched the ITV production of this book last night on the tele (without much hope, considering the mess they had made of the same author’s Mansfield Park last week.)
They made a much better fist of this one.
Their choice of location for the Abbey while initially surprising was actually very suitable.
They picked one of Irelands most dramatically sited castles, Lismore in County Waterford.
The family rooms are sited so close to a steep drop down to the Suir below that apparently when King James stayed there he lept in fear back from his first view out the window.

I passed the Castle in December, in the evening , on the way to to my niece’s wedding in Longueville and it loomed so romantically out of the mist I couldn’t resist stopping the car to take this shot.

On my last visit to France I stayed over night in a restaurant with rooms in La Guerche-de Bretagne called Calèche.
Having in the Guide Michelin both a Bib Gourmand and coin symbol, which indicates that it is cheap, it was a good choice.
At breakfast time, having produced the usual bread and croissants M. le Propritaire said to us;
“Desirez vous un oeuf ?”
The answer of course is a simple: Yes!, I constantly desire eggs, but, as my cholesterol count is too high they are strictly rationed.
It is I suppose an acknowledgment of old age when one can call eggs objects of desire!

I like this photo which my beau frère, Martin Lyes (certainly a French name) took of Síle and I at the door of the new house at the new year.
Looking suitably proprietorial I think.

Note the boot scrapers at our sides, an indication, neighbour Petra Carter tells us, that the house was originally a Maison de Vigneron and not a presbytery.
The excellent guide to the village backs this up as it tells us that the original presbytery was down the street but became a girls school in the 1900’s, this, presumably, being when number 14 became the new priest’s house.
There is a date of 1923 over the door but this must have been the date of a renovation, the best guess so far is that the house, like many others on the street, dates from sometime between 1750 and 1800.
Note also the panel of, now faded, scumbling (a painting technique to give the appearance of wood) topped with a cement rail of mock wood at the bottom of the outside wall. I havn’t noticed this detail on any other house in the village.
We still havn’t decided on a name but are committed to doing so on our next visit at Easter.
Le Vieux Presbytère and L’Ancien Presbytère and even Le Presbytère de Thèzan lès Béziers ( shortened to Le Pres de Thez les Bez maybe- I jest!) are all canditates.
These are all worthy but a little dull. We are hoping that the balmy Hérault air will inspire us to something a little better.

I remember being in Connemara in in March in 1970 and being hit by a few days of unseasonal snow.
It was explained to me by my host, Seosamh O Tuairisc, that these were Laethanta an Bó Riabhaigh, the days of the Brindled Cow.
The same cow, having complained about the weather all winter at last relaxed in the balmy days of early Spring in March.
With that some winter weather arrived and, defences down, the old cow was overtaken by the cold and died of what we would now call hypothermia.
I think of this nearly every year when we have our brindled cow days, like we are having now.

This morning we had a visit from my newest grand niece, Emma Fletcher.
If my additions are right I think she is my 27th grand niece/nephew.

She kindly brought her parents Lib and Dave with her.

Graciously permitted her grand-uncle to feed her

And smiled beautifully at her Great Aunt Síle

For many years I had been making a starter in the restaurant which I feel dated back to my days in The Wife of Bath in Kent.
This I called a Bourride of Smoked Haddock and it really was as authentic as putting garlic with Bacon and Cabbage.
Smoked haddock is not a fish available on the Mediterranean coast and more importantly the dish contained tomato, a sin of the first order.
I will quote Ann Willian in French Regional Cuisine on this:
“Bourride is pale, flavoured only with garlic, onion, herbs and olive oil, with none of the distracting tomato and saffron found in bouillabaisse. Aioli sauce is its indispensable accompaniment- a thick pungent garlic mayonnaise which is served with anything from snails to vegetables to hard-boiled eggs.” (Regarding the amount of garlic in an aioli, Elizabeth David says that it should “tingle in your throat as you swallow it” !)

Notwithstanding the untraditional tomato and the smoked fish, that version of Bourride is extremely good but, bearing in mind my intended move to Languedoc and my intentions to operate a Table d’Hôte there I decided to make myself conversant with an authentic version of the dish of Bourride. This led me back to both Ann Willian and Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cooking.
From these two ladies I cobbled together a version of La Bourride which I put out on the radio last week.
Since then, as is my wont, I have done some tweaking and, as I was giving a dinner party on Friday I produced my latest , tweaked version. This one I have decided was the best and I enjoyed it so much that I am going to make it for dinner again tonight. It sounds like a bit of a palaver to make, and does require the chef in some strenuous last minute activity but it is I promise worth the effort. As our nearest fishing port in Languedoc is Sète I decided to call it by that name.

La Bourride Sèteoise
(serves 6 as a main course)

1kg (2 lbs.) Brill , Turbot or Cod (weighed on the bone)
1 kg (2 lbs) Monkfish
12 Whole (Heads on)Prawns
1 Onion, peeled and sliced
1 Bottle White Wine
Olive Oil for cooking.

Vegetable Garnish
1 large onion
1 Head Fennel
1 head celery

1 Baguette or French Stick

Aioli;
6 Cloves Garlic
2 Egg Yolks
250ml (9 oz.) Olive Oil
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt and Pepper.

.

First make the fish stock.
Ask the fishmonger to fillet the fish you are using and to give you the bones and heads. (or ask him for appropriate fish bones if the fish is already filleted)

Put the onion in a large pot with a tablespoon of olive oil and sweat gently for about 10 mts until soft.
Put the bones into the pot with the onion and continue to sweat for another few minutes.
Take the heads from the prawns and bash these in a pestle to break up.
Add these to the fish bones.
Pour over the white wine and enough water to cover
And bring to the boil and simmer for 20 mts.
Strain carefully and then transfer back into the pot and boil hard to reduce by about a half.
(you want about 1 litre of reduced stock)

Now make the Aioli.
Crush the cloves of garlic or chop them very finely.
Add these to the egg yolks in a heavy bowl and with a beater beat them well.
Dribble in the olive oil and, beating all the time, make a thick garlicky mayonnaise. Add the lemon juice and the seasonings half way through.

Cut the baguette in slices and coat in olive oil.
Bake these at 150C for about 30 minutes until crisp and golden.

For the vegetable garnish;
Peel and slice the onion finely.
Slice finely the celery and the fennel.
Sweat these together in a little olive oil in a lidded pan on a low heat until they are soft.
Keep warm, or you can re-heat before serving.

All these stages can be done in advance.

Cut the monk into large chunks and cut the flat fish in 2 or 3 pieces..
Cut the prawn tails in two along their length.
Bring the stock to a slow simmer.
Taste and season.
Slip in the monk in and simmer for 10 minutes until just cooked.
Remove these pieces with a slotted spoon and keep in a warm oven.
In the same stock poach the flat fish and the prawn tails for 5 minutes then put with the monk.

In a heavy based pot heat some of the stock and then, off the heat whisk in two thirds of the aioli.
(The remaining third serve in a bowl on the table.)

Put the aioli and stock mixture on a low heat, add the rest of the stock and continue whisking until it thickens a little.

Put a spoonful of the warm fennel and celery mixture in six large soup plates.
Divide the fish between the plates, on top of the vegetables and ladle over the soup.
Serve the roasted bread separately.
It is also traditional to serve some plain boiled potatoes on the side.

As this is part soup and part main course and very hearty I think there is no need to serve a starter .

OK I have been tagged by Caitriona,(that is to tell five things you don’t know about me) this makes it doubly difficult because it is nearly impossible to produce hidden parts of your life to someone with whom you have lived for 17 years. (She is my daughter!) But I’ll try.

(1.)
I resolutely didn’t listen to pop music until about 16 believing in a totally snobbish fashion that it was inferior to classical. I was seduced back into pop by falling for Joan Baez, she led me to Bob Dylan and then I saw the Rolling Stones live in the Savoy in Cork………..

(2 )
I am 58 years old but am the youngest of seven children, the six siblings still think of me as the “babby” and still spoil me. (Shaming but true!)

(3)
I won second prize in the Shell Hole (don’t ask)under twelve free style swimming race when I was 11. The shameful bit is that I still have the medal-somewhere.

(4)
As a child I firmly believed that I had special powers which made me superior to everyone else. They pretended to be like me just to make me feel that I wasn’t alone.

(5)
At the age of 12 or 13 I saved up and went alone to see Maya Plisetskaya,of the Bolshoi Ballet Company dance the Dying Swan in the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin. I was so moved that I was still weeping (to my profound embarrassment) when the curtain came up at the end.

Ok?
A card carrying nerd.
I am not going to pass it on as I think every other blogger I know has already been tagged.
If anyone who reads this wants to tell me anything that I dont know about them please do so, in the comment box!

Sile’s sister and brother-in-law Máre and Padraic were with us last weekend and brought us some tulips as a bread and butter present.
I never like Tulips until they start to flop and fade, they are at their best , I think , just at that moment.
Tonight they became just perfect so I took their picture.

This is a picture of the village from the nearby Peuch or hill.
Our presbytery will magically appear (thanks Triona!) if you wave the mouse over the picture.

It was never like Elizabeth David to get fanciful but there was one occasion when she was seduced into getting just a little OTT.
The man who did it for her was the auther I am currently enjoying so much; Patrick Leigh Fermor.
In French Provincial Cooking Ms. David gives a recipe for a melon ice cream which she christens;
Glaçe au Melon de L’Île St. Jacques.

I will quote her directly while she tells us why;

The melon ice has a strange, almost magical flavour and that is why I have called it after that French Caribbean island so unforgettably conjured out of the ocean, only to be once more submerged, by Patrick Leigh Fermor in The Violins of St. Jacques
Heady stuff from ED!
Inspired by this evocative prose I tried many times and with many different types of melon to capture this subtle flavour but found on all occasions that the cream overpowered the melon taste. Perhaps ED’s taste buds were more sensitive than mine? Maybe Melons in the fifties were more flavoursome?

The only similar concoction I have made successfully with Melon was a melon sorbet, cream free, and even then I found that a little chopped ginger helped to bring out the melon flavour.